Beacon Spotlight 22 – Going Deeper on Keywords

You’ve no doubt heard it before and we’ll say it again; keywords are the lifeblood of content and SEO. Yet, we talk to so many people who are not sure where to start or how to decide which keywords are the right ones to optimize for. While there is no black and white answer, we’ve done a couple of previous spotlights on Keyword Discovery (which should never end and continually be revisited, in case you were wondering) and identifying top performing keywords within keyword klusters (i.e. the fancy name gShift gives to logical groups of keywords). Here we will cover a few additional Data Beacons, which can be added to custom dashboards to help you go a further in determining which keywords are the ones to focus on based on criteria like position and average monthly search volume.

Content Keywords

Beacon Type: Content, Keywords

Question Answered: Which keywords is my content ranking for and which ones should I be optimizing for?

Assuming you’ve used either the Top Content by Visibility or Analytics Beacon to identify existing content you’ve already established some authority for, this Beacon will enable you to see all of the followed keywords it can be found for across selected search engines, along with the average monthly search volume for each. With this data, you can quickly determine if there are high volume keywords you have room to improve on or drill down on any single keyword to find related alternative short or long-tail keywords to include in your content marketing efforts.

Keyword Position and Volume Comparison

Beacon Type: Keywords

Question Answered: Which keywords within a selected group and search engine should I be focusing on?

The Keyword Position and Search Volume Comparison Beacon will enable quick identification of top performing or underperforming Keywords within specific Keyword Klusters based on positions and average monthly search volume across multiple search engines, enabling you to better determine where to focus your attention. For example, you may choose to compare how certain keywords are performing in a National vs. Local vs. Mobile search engine as all can be tracked separately in gShift.

Drill down from this Beacon into more specific details for any single keyword and additional insights into what to do next.

Keyword Position Comparison Graph

Beacon Type: Keywords

Question Answered: Which keywords within a selected group should I be focusing on?

Similar to the previous Beacon, the Keyword Position Comparison Graph provides another way to visualize the keywords within a kluster requiring attention based on either their rank within a specified search engine, their monthly average search volume in the engine and/or a combination of these two metrics. Dots on the mid-far right (with higher search volume) are most likely your prime targets, depending on competition and your realistic potential for establishing authority for those keywords. Click on any keyword to see more granular details and to gain further insights into what to do next to boost authority of content optimized for this keyword.

Using these Beacons, along with the Standard and Advanced Keyword Discovery options, will provide you with a rich base of short and long tail keywords to power your evolving content marketing and SEO strategies. Then look to other content and analytics Beacons to measure, validate and optimize those strategies for maximum engagement and conversion.